made a post a while back on how javert's suicide is often poorly portrayed in film adaptations to the point of accidental comedy, and how the 1978 movie in particular is the most unhinged example. audio warning for a loud trumpet blast, don't turn up your volume

remember that wild Dragon Age theme park ride (Dragon Age: Flight of the Wardens), originally located in Dubai until it randomly turned up years later (now also oddly-rebranded as "[Not Dragon Age We Swears It]: The Guardian") in, of all places, Skegness England? well, I had to satisfy my curiosity and obsession with obscure pieces of Dragon Age media & archival thereof. and so - actually quite some time ago now - I finally got around to going on a pilgrimage there (which was this whole, like.. heinous harrowing in and of itself, that I will not go into), and I rode it

and to my surprise the original Dragon Age in-ride movie is still part of the ride experience! - complete with references to darkspawn, a Pride demon, dragons, green "rifts", Discount Anders (a Grey Warden[?] mage called 'Eldron'), Discount Yavanna (a Witch of the Wilds called 'Alexia') and Dragon Age: Inquisition soundtrack music. there is also now a new pre-ride movie which replaces the old Dragon Age pre-ride movie as part of the ride's rebranding, and i simply ?¿?

there are also still quite a lot of identifiable Dragon Age props in the fantasy-themed queue-area of the ride (so these must have been part of the whole purchase between parks), including multiple iconic Inquisitor helmets, Grey Warden shields, a Dragon Age dragon (now with DA-dragon identifiable horns.. sawn off??), and several Dragon Age banners, including the Inquisition hairy eyeball, the templar symbol and the Circle symbol. here's some pictures.

[^this image is taken from the video linked below]

I also captured the new pre-ride movie, and you can see it along with the Dragon Age in-ride movie here ⬇️. and so now, with this epilogue to the.. most odyssey of all time, more than two years after the first message about the ride was ever sent to Ghil Dirthalen, this adventure in obscurity and the strange fever-dream meta story of the Dragon Age: Flight of the Wardens era in Dragon Age history is finally complete.

Ghil Dirthalen: The Guardian??? {Overview. - Spoilers All}

[video source & link: Ghil Dirthalen, posted here w/ permission]

some further notes, thoughts and commentary under the cut -

there's a few seconds missing from this capture of the in-ride movie. for the sake of the curious and completion: in them, you're still in the fort and you see lots of 'Wardens' walking and milling around.

a camera in the ride takes two photos of the riders during the ride, which are displayed on a screen on the way out. you can choose to buy these from the Fantasy Island merchandise store. you know those photos of people on log flume rides? it's like those, only of the four riders in a row in the seats. the photos have Fantasy Island branding on them and fire along the bottom, then in two corners there's a bit of a dragon's head and that's about it. the ride photo is the only Guardian-specific merch available at the park.

some of the queue area props appear to be from random other places. like there was a barrel which had something like "1850 distillery" written on it, which is obviously temporally/thematically and universe-ly out of place (not that that's at all unreasonable given the rest of the rideworld lore, there's totally a way it could have gotten there easily hh, see below), and I guess it's a spare or leftover prop from a Western-themed ride or something? others were generic sword'n'sorcery fantasy props (some of these are from the ride's previous life in Dubai though). there are also some pretty random props, like a dead stuffed roe deer's head on the wall and a.. comically large spoon.

there's music playing in the queue area, but it's not DA music, it's generic ye olde fantasy world music.

some folks there mistakenly thought that the long themed lead-up (it was pretty darn long) queue area with the props was the entrance to or start of something completely different, like a haunted house or maze type thing, or was the ride 'experience' in and of itself.

the ride attendant gives you the option of watching the new pre-ride movie or not. I guess they get sick of putting it on and listening to it 9000 times a day (valid), and also cutting it out reduces queue times as it's about five minutes long. it's screened in a little enclosed room at the end of the queue area. you go in and sit down, they show it to you, then you go through another door to the chair machine.

the in-ride movie is blurry and poor quality. I heard someone else who rode it say that it was so blurry that they had no idea what was going on hhh

Now about the new pre-ride movie. in the linked video, the start of the new pre-ride movie isn't included in full at normal speed as it seemed to be a compilation of whatever random fantasy-themed stock footage the video creator could find, stitched together. but again for the curious and the sake of completion: it starts out panning randomly around SPACE, like at the solar system and of planets and at the Milky Way. for a sec I wondered if it was made up of random old Mass Effect assets. then it shows dragons (FROM SPACE) invading an Earth-like planet where I suppose the Ferelden-y kindgom (formerly called "Noathen", now called "Elvia" or something) setting in the rideworld is now supposed to be set. these invading dragons invade either from space or.. another dimension?? or maybe from the future or both?? [see below], entering through a big green rift. (and they still have the green coloring for the rifts and call it/them "rifts" like in DA, which was honestly so funny to me for some reason). the whole panning in from space start to the movie reminded me a lot of the Easter eggs in the DA and ME games that, while they're just Easter eggs for fun and I don't subscribe to this theory myself (as DA is its own great, self-contained thing), could light-heartedly imply that the planet with Thedas on it is a planet in the MEverse (like the krogan head in the Winter Palace in DAI or the ogre in that ME dlc).

in the pre-ride movie, the kingdom of "Elvia" might have actually been called "Albion", which is the earliest-known name for the island of Britain. (it was hard to make out exactly what the king was saying there) the new pre-ride movie seems like it was made in England and ofc thats a common fantasy setting, so I could see it, especially since the king character's name was something like Aethylswyth, which sounded very "Old English". for me personally, if it was "Albion", it adds fuel to the fire of Caitie's cracktheory/"trying to make this fit"-headcanon for the ride story/lore (see Caitie's original video on the ride's previous life for this), that it's set somewhere obscure and backwatery in Ferelden, which is kinda England- or Britain-inspired. (dont take these thoughts or other thoughts in this post about the lore/canon etc too srsly pls hh, it's just crack for fun and I know tis just an off-brand themepark ride)

on the whole the new pre-ride movie is pretty random. there's a giant in it, but it doesn't look like a DAI giant. (is it his big spoon??) it shows a fortress in part of it which looks a bit like Skyhold if you squint, with the long bridge approaching it as the entrance. at one point one of the dragons that pops up is a dragon designed more in the style of a dragon as they are sometimes depicted in, for example, Chinese mythology and folklore. the "communication device" the king described had me rolling, it's exactly like a Dragon Age Skype Crystal or a working set of eluvians from Thedas.. I wondered if the video creator was inspired some by DAI promo images and took cues from the Inquisitor's green hand/the Anchor, since the king has a green glowing thing on (or in?) his chest. and when the king started listing the elements humans are made of, I was reminded of Fullmetal Alchemist.

also, "through a time rift".. I mean technically Dorian's involvement in DAI DOES show green space-time magic right? Where is this other dimension? ofc I know it's not literally Dragon Age, but it's funny to think about and to try and make it "fit" skhskdhfjhe. is it the Fade? the Void? from somewhere in-between like Tevinter Nights implies exists? or is it the dimension which has Thedas's mundane world itself in it - like maybe the dragons are invading this poor guy's kingdom dimension from Thedas? if so what tf is going on in Thedas?? did Solas' explosion at the Conclave ripple through spacetime and rip holes in the fabrics of other worlds as well - like is Solas out here accidentally causing interdimensional Space Dragon invasions? like, theoretically.. the new pre-ride move does reference the in-ride movie, and in turn the in-ride movie is still Dragon Age (!), so technically the new pre-ride movie IS.. kind of.. weirdly.. canon.

((the pre-ride movie references an "outerworld", implying that even in THAT dimension there's an outer world and an inner world, definitely more than one at least. and back on the dimensions thing, I'm not clear - are the dragons coming from Thedas dimension? or are they coming to Thedas dimension? "they came through the rift, human in form but with powers, the ability to fly [that's Eldron] and the ability to transform into dragon-like creatures [that's Alexia]" implies that the dimension on the other side of the rift - if the helpers came through the same rift as the invading dragons - is Thedas, because that's Eldron and Alexia from the Dragon Age in-ride movie being referred to, and Noathen where they're from is in Thedas somewhere. so some Thedosians have travelled to another world to save it?? Dragons are escaping out of Thedas? but.. from space? but also - the narration is telling us that Eldron and Alexia and the other Guardians brought with them from where they came from, as a gift, incredible advanced technology that the people of Elvia have never seen before. he then gives the example of "this communication device" which could be read meta-ly as meaning the television screen, and of plans to build a machine made of metal and advanced technology (meaning the ride machine you go sit on, which is a themepark machine irl obviously and in the 'world' of the ride, some kind of flying machine). so like.. are Eldron and Alexia from Future Thedas (think Avatar Aang/Korra, when by Korra's time there's like lots more machinery and a more modern feel), a Thedas which has advanced complex machines like idk, AEROPLANES? is that what they mean by "time-rift"? because they specifically did say "time". is that to try and explain the modern machinery? does that mean the invading dragons also came from the future, not just from space or another dimension? the other option: Eldron and Alexia came from alternate universe Thedas, which has more modern technology in it. but Thedosians Time-Travelling From The Future And Also Space And Another Dimension is so funny to me so lets go with that. my headcanon is that on the way to Elvia they also timetravelled through a Westernthemed time period and thats why theres a recent-modern period whisky barrel)).

in the ride's previous life, the explanatory hook was that Eldron made you a special harness or saddle thing with which to ride a dragon, which was what the ride machine was simulating. however now, the hook to explain the machine is that it's a gift of advanced technology powered by carbon, hydrogen, organic matter (Big Oil lmao?) etc. (I enjoyed that this explanatory hook got wackier between eras of the ride's life, much like the whole meta story of this piece of media itself. it was already weird because riding dragons isn't really part of DA. though I don't understand meta-ly speaking this convoluted explanation for the machine. dragon-riding isn't an identifiable or key part of the Dragon Age franchise, so they could have kept the idea that you're sitting on a dragon's back and flying around on that in instead of having this wacky explanation about a flying machine gifted from magical strangers from Back To The Future and it would have been fine. I love it though bc its so absurd)

And Tiny Dragon Alexia from the original ride experience is kinda referenced (unintentionally?) when the king introduces the dragon "Guardian" "Mia", as when she comes on-screen her size or scaling looks small/kinda off, so maybe Tiny Dragon lives on. so now we have Tiny Dragon Alexia, Tiny Dragon Mia, and Tiny Dragon queue prop. it's a Tiny Dragon Conference.

and like I just have so many questions. in her original video on the ride, Ghil Dirthalen wondered at length where in Ferelden/Thedas Noathen could be. where is Elvia? why does the pov of the pre-ride movie proceed downstairs into the room where the king is - like why does the king have his throne in a basement? is he in an underground bunker for safety because of the Space Dragon invasion? why does he say we "climbed" up when we have just gone down into his dungeon? why is the tiny dragon introduced as "Mia" when the tiny dragon witch lady in the in-ride movie is called "Alexia"? does the king's green glowing chest thing work like the Anchor - does he have a chest Anchor.. a Chanchor? where did they get Discount Gandalf from the queue area and why is he exactly like the Ghil Dirthalen Stock Theatre Wizards in her original video? why did they change the kingdom's name from "Noathen" to "Elvia" in the pre-ride movie when "Noathen" was already non-existent in Dragon Age lore? why did they scrub Dragon Age from or avoid Dragon Age in the pre-ride movie but leave the whole Dragon Age in-ride movie intact? are the "Guardians" Discount Grey Wardens? is the king's whole schpeel secretly an evil plot so he that can use our bodies for like necromancy-alchemy? why does the ride run on your flesh and are we about to be sacrificed in a blood magic ritual? do we end up like the husks in Mass Effect after our organic forms are broken down into compounds to fuel the King of Elvia's flying anti-dragon defense tank? is the actor of the king a park staffer who is into larping, or someone's fun nerd uncle who likes DnD? does Caitie not in fact agree that I am very handsome and smart, indeed the World's Most Interesting Guy? 😤 why go to the trouble of sawing off the dragon's DA-dragon horns when the in-ride movie is still Dragon Age?? why are the dragons invading from space anyway like what do they want??? how can I obtain the king actor guy's autograph? where are EA's lawyers? and why is there a giant spoon?

another angle of blake and daniel. 😅

https://twitter.com/TimKraaij/status/1761053475419390447?t=7GBOMqzYL2Nc-qS7HF2Z9Q&s=19

Look who’s here at Turn 8 👀

Off season Pt3

Happy 11 years, 5 Seconds of Summer!

How high is the rent in Nijigao City that MADGUY just decided they were going to play a 1000 IQ move and live in a secret base?

38 and 39 for the ask game!

(Love your art by the way)

38: fav song at the moment?

pawprint panic | party at club bug | love birds

39: youtuber you've been obsessed with and why?

link to scruffy's youtube channel

i have watched hours upon hours of japanese train videos maybe i should just go full autist and try to memorize the name of every single model type they got

sadly between rehearsals and bad weather I never got to visit the other islands - it was so fun but I do regret that not getting to explore further! I didn't say this enough in my reblog but holy CRAP, one glimpse of your art took me back 20 years - that's extraordinary! you captured that luminous atmosphere so perfectly, I'm genuinely blown away. I lived in Tokyo for years and the glow of light in the windows in the first picture is ❤️ I'm so happy you shared these - thank you very much!

ouuugh i hope u do get the chance to visit the others in the future, they’re also just as amazing!! we actually got so lucky w the weather, it started raining just as we left inujima hfjhk!! and also !!!!!! TY AAAAA THIS IS SO SWEET n makes me so happy to hear!!!!!! <333 it was a v special trip for me so i tried my best to capture the experience, im rly glad it connected :’)))

Memorable Gaming Moments: Thane's Loyalty Mission in Mass Effect 2 (aka: why Seryna is a personal favorite)

So, I've been playing through the Horizon series again recently and examining some of the side characters more closely, trying to really focus on picking apart their motivations and the ways they connect with Aloy and the larger story. Unfortunately for all you HZD and HFW fans, though, this post is not about those games (Though I'm sure I'll yell about them at some point).

While I could talk about Morlund and his theatrical counterparts for quite some time, I'd rather talk about a character from my favorite video game series who I've been meaning to collect my thoughts on for a while. Mass Effect 2's sheer volume of recruitment missions mean that Commander Shepard meets their fair share of alien personalities, but to this day, Thane's recruitment mission contains the one I am most intrigued by.

Seryna, the asari Shepard meets in the transportation sector, is only on-screen for about five minutes of the game. Despite that short length of time and the fact that she never shows up again in the next installment of the franchise, I remain fascinated by her. In five minutes and three (two and a half?) scenes, she plays the situation to her advantage extremely skillfully, in a way I'm not sure even most of the main characters could imitate, and she comes out clean and almost intentionally forgettable on the other side.

Seyna's first words to Shepard are "Who wants to know," immediately evasive and prodding for information, giving herself a chance to size up the threat in front of her under the guise of disinterest. As soon as she learns that Shepard is after Thane, she's immediately very matter of fact and unafraid to freely give information.

One of the biggest reasons this is notable to me is that in almost every other recruitment mission so far, a character has required something from Shepard before they are willing to provide their assistance. Mordin needed help stopping the plague on Omega. Okeer wanted help killing Jedore. The Warden on the prison ship wasn't willing to provide help at all, planning a double cross the entire time. The list goes on. Seryna just tells them what they want to know and gives them immediate access to do it. She clearly doesn't trust Shepard, but she navigates the conversation with them in a way that doesn't invite any kind of retaliation on their part, which seems very intentional.

Also during this conversation, Seryna reveals that she worked for Nassana's security and confronted Nassana when she learned her boss was having people killed. And yet, somehow, despite being willing to kill to keep her secrets under wraps, Nassana leaves Seryna alive, firing her rather than just killing her too. This always struck me as rather odd, considering that Nassana was willing to sacrifice an army of mercs just to keep herself safe from an assassin. Even if Shepard doesn't do the side quest to unknowingly help Nassana kill her sister, that's pretty damning evidence all on its own.

So, what was it about Seryna specifically that made Nassana choose mercy? We know she's not Eclipse, since Eclipse is an existing group outside of Nassana. Even if Nassana fired her, she'd likely still be doing Eclipse work instead of having to find a job at the transport station that she clearly isn't fond of.

Seryna certainly wasn't spared because Nassana wanted to keep her in her back pocket as a potential re-hire, either, since Nassana knows Seryna will call her actions into question, and she's clearly paranoid enough during the actual recruitment mission that she would never trust Seryna again at this point.

My personal assumption is that Seryna is an asari commando or former spec ops agent of some kind, someone Nassana didn't think she could kill without some kind of backlash or without potentially losing her own life in the process (Seryna does mention that she might have been good enough at her job that she could have stopped Thane from killing Nassana, though whether this is hubris or not is open to interpretation). If it's not for either of those reasons, Nassana letting someone that intrinsically tied to her personal security forces go free doesn't seem like a loose end she would tolerate. This point is further expanded upon after the mission, but I'll touch on that in a moment.

If we go back to the pre-mission conversation, Seryna freely admits that she did not hire Thane, but much like she's doing with Shepard now, she's not afraid to give out info on the best ways to get to her former boss. She clearly has no love for Nassana, and it's not until the car ride to the tower that she finally asks Shepard,

"So, this assassin. You here to stop him?"

And this is interesting. Because realistically, while Seryna's more than happy to see Nassana's head on a platter, she's already given Thane the information for that to happen, AND there would be no ties to her even if he failed because she didn't hire him. By helping Shepard, who is clearly not a hired assassin, get involved, she is risking Nassana's wrath much more directly, and instead of telling Shepard to find someone else to help, she takes them to the tower even though she admits in this moment that there's technically a chance Shepard could be going to assist Nassana.

Asking this question after she's already decided to help begs the question: does she know who Shepard is and is therefore unwilling to cross them? Does she not want to look the heavily-armed gift horse in the mouth, help them out while she can, and just get out of dodge before there's any potential blowback?

I personally lean towards the latter. If Shepard is there to help, that can only help speed up Nassana's death, and if Shepard's not... hey, those are a lot of big guns they have, best not risk it.

Of course, Shepard affirms that they're there to help the assassin (though the way they put it, "I'm just here to make sure he survives," is certainly worth the slightly interested "hm" Seryna gives in response, seeing as Shepard could still be working in Nassana's benefit and just trying to keep Thane alive so Nassana can get information out of him, but I think it's mostly safe to say at this point that Seryna believes that she and Shepard are working towards a similar goal), and the mission commences, ending with Nassana's death.

After Seryna drops Shepard off at the Dantius Towers for the mission, Shepard never sees her again, but they are given a recorded message by her co-worker, Tana, and that she took an unspecified job off-world at an unknown location. We learn in this message that Seryna was "on her way to a new life" when she heard the news that Nassana was dead.

This implies that almost immediately after dropping Shepard off, she books it. She flees. Even if we as the audience assume that a couple of days pass in-universe (we know that Shepard hits the towers at night and that the sun is rising when they find Thane, and it's likely that the police find Nassana's body within twenty-four hours of that moment), she packs up her entire life in less than a day, makes all the necessary arrangements, and is GONE before the news even drops about her old boss's death. I'm largely of the mind that what she told her co-worker about finding a new job was a blatant lie (especially taking into consideration how much she seemed to dislike the transport job but chose it anyway), and she was just getting the hell out in case everything went south.

Seryna played the game, and played it well, and when the chips were falling in a way that could have been fatal to her, even if the odds were clearly in her favor, she jumped ship to avoid any potential for a wildcard ruining her plans, and she fascinates me.

TL;DR, Seryna, a one-off character whose only narrative goal is to get Commander Shepard to Thane Krios, is heavily implied to be a force of nature in her own right.

In just these few moments of game time, Seryna proves herself shrewd, competent, intelligent, possibly VERY gifted at combat, petty, and willing to uproot her entire life to stay safe and alive.

I'm more interested in Seryna than I am some of the main squad characters in this game! I'd read a short spin-off story about her, no lie, but since that will likely never happen, I'll just yell about her here on tumblr so we all give her another look on our next playthrough.

Morlund I'm sorry this post wasn't about you

Oh, Saint Peter, let me in!

You must know where I've been

Won't you tell me at last who I am?

[Image descriptions in alt text]

wake up babes new ghost girl just dropped

wow! it's jazz!

we're spinning out of control oh noooooooooo

credits under break

Rein van den Broek trumpet, flugelhorn

Jan Vennik reeds, flute

Hans Jansen keyboards

Hans Hollestelle guitar, synthesizer

Jan Hollestelle bass, synthesizer, violoncello, piano

Cees Kranenburg drums, percussion

John Sonneveld producer

Chris Duinmeijer cover art

lemita's understanding of the birdhouse video is the best one

I swear I think I said this somewhere but I'll say it again lmao i think the highlight of my selfshipping self this year was that i really did come to adore my familials and how fun it is to come up with ideas for them. they're a special brand of being comfort character and it's honestly because of me reading pok.espe that made me come to appreciate family bonds

this is corny as hell sorry

Filed under: Shit I Had To See With My Own Eyes Today

A middle aged woman rode up to my yard sale this morning on a bicycle.  Not a mountain bike - a kid’s BMX bike.  Full-on Karen hairdo, dangly earrings, high heeled sneakers, shoulder bag.  Rode over to the vacuum cleaner I had sitting near the sidewalk with a $25 price tag on it, grabbed it by the handle neck, picked it up, and rode off with it.  Never glanced at anything else, never looked toward the house to see if anyone would see her, never indicated in any way that she even cared if anyone saw her.

Straight up STOLE MY VACUUM CLEANER ON A BICYCLE AND RODE OFF

I’m sure the cops are laughing their asses off watching the security cam video I sent them.

Who does shit like this??